ABSTRACT
The use of plants to meet the world's food needs is vital to civilization's survival. Plants are the most important source of food for man. A few triticale plants were found that had apparently outcrossed several generations before to an early-maturing, dwarf, Mexican wheat. Anyone engaged in attempting to increase world food production soon comes to realize that human misery resulting from world food shortages and world population growth are part of the same problem. Agriculture is the nation's largest industry, employing directly and indirectly a total of seventeen to twenty million people in the entire food chain, from production through transportation, processing, storage, distribution, marketing, and serving in restaurants. Certainly the greatest contribution of American agriculture to the consumer is the relatively cheap price of food. The agriculture of Europe and parts of Asia made a spectacular recovery in the mid-1950s. The genetic potential of this species in increasing food production and improving nutritional quality is indeed promising.
